[TUHS] The 'usage: ...' message. (Was: On Bloat...)

[John Levine]

It appears that Clem Cole <clemc at ccc.com> said:
>“The PL/C compiler had the unusual capability of never failing to compile
>> any program, through the use of extensive automatic correction of many
>> syntax errors and by converting any remaining syntax errors to output
>> statements.”
>
>The problem is that people can be lazy, and instead of using " DWIM" as a
>tool to speed up their development and fix their own errors, they just
>ignore the errors. ...

PL/C was a long time ago in the early 1970s. People used it on batch
systems whre you handed in your cards at the window, waited a while,
and later got your printout back. Or at advanced places, you could
run the cards through the reader yourself, then wait until the batch
ran.

In that environment, the benefit from possibly guessing an error
correction right meant fewer trips to the card reader. In my youth I
did a fair amount of programming that way in WATFOR/WATFIV and Algol W
where we really tried to get the programs right since we wanted to
finish up and go home.

When I was using interactive systems where you could fix one bug and
try again, over and over, it seemed like cheating.

R's,
John